FIAR Week #4 - The Story of Ping

This week we rowed The Story of Ping at co-op. We're getting into a rhythm so it's good. We start by reviewing our geography and our animals. And that leads nicely into where we'll be visiting today and any animals that might be in the story. So today we looked at some books on Asia and China (particularly The Great Wall) and then headed into our story. Today's art lesson was learning to make water ripples and blending with colored pencils. Most of the art we've been doing seems to be going over the kids' heads. A few catch on but most of them, they just do their own thing. We concluded the first hour with the buoyancy test. That was really fun and the kids seemed to really enjoy it. The second hour was supposed to be spent doing some math, but our math today included cutting out ducks and the cutting completely absorbed all the time. We didn't even get to our rice cakes and our chopsticks. So it was a little rushed at the end but it was fun.

At home, we supplemented by reading The Hungry Duckling, The Five Chinese Brothers, and The Story of Noodles (which by the way, Superman really, really liked). He learned how to say noodles in Chinese "mian tiao".

2008-09 School Pictures

We had pictures taken today at co-op.















Here's one of the whole gang. (Oops, I cut off some heads.)
















A silly one.















Pre-K & Kind. class.















Gr 1-3 class.















And one with mom and the boys.

Weekly Report : Sept. 15 - 19

More of the same -o in terms of the three r's this week. I guess that's a good thing.
I did want to post some pictures from Batman's class at co-op (American History). They've been covering a different topic every week and it's been really good. He's enjoying it a lot.
















Week 1 - Leif Ericson, the viking who first discovered America.
















Week 2 - Christopher Columbus
















Week 3 - Jamestown

FIAR Week #3 - Night of the Moonjellies

Today we read Night of the Moonjellies. I don't know why but this book seemed to be a little over the kids heads. We looked at the New England states for geography and for science we looked at this book Creatures That Glow. We sat back to back to feel our vertebrae , and we squished jello to feel what a moon jelly might feel like. For art, we colored an ocean scene with oil pastels. Then we had fun playing store (or Mar-Gra's) with monopoly money. We also read this book Surrounded by Sea: Life on a New England Fishing Island.
















Here is Superman's re-creation of the ocean scene from the book. He decided to add a sun though. He likes bright and cheery, I guess.
















Batman decided to try his hands at oil pastels as well when we got home.

FIAR Week #2 - How To Make An Apple Pie & See The World

Today was our second class at co-op. I think the kids are getting the idea. Not one asked, "When's playtime?" I think last week, we were asked that all throughout.

Today was a fun class. We read the book and colored the flag of Sri Lanka. We looked at the map and at some farm animals. We pantomimed some of the action words for language arts. The fun part was baking mini apple pies and taste testing different apples. We baked mini apple pies in muffin tins and taste tested four different apples and graphed the results. Fuji came out on top. We read a go-along book called Tiny, Tiny Boy and Big, Big Cow, illustrated by Marjorie Priceman.
















Superman eating his creation.

















Going over the results of our taste test.

Weekly Report : Sept. 8-11, 2008

Well, this week was a big week for us - we started co-op! Superman is taking a FIAR class and Batman is taking American History. It was an even bigger week because I'm teaching FIAR! Phew, am I ever glad that the first week is over.

B has been working on his math and copywork steadily. We are trying to commit to memory even and odd skip count numbers by 2. He's coming along. We added FLL and narration of Aesop this week. Narration is a little rusty from the summer break. On the other hand though, he sat down today and wrote a report on the book Leif the Lucky all by himself (aside from the spelling of certain words he asked)! I don't know what propelled him to do this. He just sat down and started writing away and told me not to look. He's written a lot of stories, comics, and letters but they were all dictated to me. I think this is his first piece of writing (long writing) that he has written (both composition and handwriting) that he has done by himself. He did really well. Way to go B!

I've read that writing is really a two part process. The first is the formation of words and ideas in the head, then the second part is putting the words on paper. They are two separate processes. Composition can be learned in the mind before the hand is ready to put it to paper. Maybe B's hand caught up to his thoughts today.

For Superman, we continued with his letters from Handwriting Without Tears and followed up with this week's FIAR material.

I'm still trying to figure out how to juggle a toddler in there. Haven't really implemented my plan yet. Just wasn't the week for that yet I guess.

FIAR Week #1 - Petunia

This was our first week at FIAR co-op and we rowed Petunia.
We have 17 kids in the class and though they're mostly kindergardeners and first graders, they seemed really young. We read Petunia and the books below. As well, we did coloring sheets for the USA flag and for the continent of North America. We also did math using this from Homeschool Share. And cut out a cute barn as well. We talked about teeth and I showed them the experiment for eggs in vinegar (the acid eats away at the shell made of calcium).
I realized I have to simplify and plan for longer time for the activities. All in all, it was a good first class.

Let's Read & Find Out Science : How Many Teeth





Dr. DeSoto

A mouse dentist that treats and outwits a fox.